LSP’s technical investigation led to the involvement of NASA’s Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). DOJ’s efforts, recently made public, resulted in the resolution of criminal charges and alleged civil claims against SPI, and its agreement to pay $46 million to the U.S. government and other commercial customers. This relates to a 19-year scheme that included falsifying thousands of certifications for aluminum extrusions to hundreds of customers.

NASA’s updated public summary of the launch failures, which was published Tuesday, comes after a multiyear technical investigation by LSP and updates the previous public summaries on the Taurus XL launch failures for the OCO and Glory missions. Those public summaries concluded that the launch vehicle fairing — a clamshell structure that encapsulates the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere — failed to separate on command, but no technical root cause had been identified. From NASA’s investigation, it is now known that SPI altered test results and provided false certifications to Orbital Sciences Corporation, the manufacturer of the Taurus XL, regarding the aluminum extrusions used in the payload fairing rail frangible joint. A frangible joint is a structural separation system that is initiated using ordnance.

“NASA relies on the integrity of our industry throughout the supply chain. While we do perform our own testing, NASA is not able to retest every single component. That is why we require and pay for certain components to be tested and certified by the supplier,” said Jim Norman, NASA’s director for Launch Services at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “When testing results are altered and certifications are provided falsely, missions fail. In our case, the Taurus XLs that failed for the OCO and Glory missions resulted in the loss of more than $700 million, and years of people’s scientific work. It is critical that we are able to trust our industry to produce, test and certify materials in accordance with the standards we require. In this case, our trust was severely violated.”

To protect the government supply chain, NASA suspended SPI from government contracting and proposed SPI for government-wide debarment. The exclusion from government contracting has been in effect since Sept. 30, 2015. NASA also has proposed debarment for Hydro Extrusion Portland, Inc.,formerly known as SPI,and the company currently is excluded from contracting throughout the federal government.

“Due in large part to the hard work and dedication of many highly motivated people in the NASA Launch Services program, we are able to close out the cause of two extremely disappointing launch vehicle failures and protect the government aerospace supply chain,” said Amanda Mitskevich, LSP program manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in, Florida. “It has taken a long time to get here, involving years of investigation and testing, but as of today, it has been worth every minute, and I am extremely pleased with the entire team’s efforts.”

Caballero joined Apple in 2005. He was involved in the strategy, roadmap and design of the earliest iPhones and iPads, a role that eventually expanded to every hardware product at the Cupertino-based company, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In 2009, he reportedly warned then-CEO Steve Jobs that the iPhone 4’s radical new design would lead to dropped calls. Apple ignored his warnings, shipped the phone and and quickly found itself mired in “Antennagate” — an early tech scandal that Apple ultimately resolved by offering free phone cases to every iPhone 4 owner.

Caballero continued to rise inside Apple, and left the company this year as one of its vice presidents of engineering. At one point, it was rumored he had been in charge of the team developing Apple’s in-house 5G modem chip.

That changed in January, when the company restructured the team, bringing it under Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji, Reuters reported at the time.

Caballero appears to have left Apple sometime after January. His company email address and phone number no longer work, and a company source told AppleInsider that he’s no longer listed in the employee directory.

The move comes amid a number of changes at Apple around the 5G modem chip. Apple had previously bought modem chips from San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., but stopped after suing Qualcomm over its business model.

The company switched to buying modem chips from Santa Clara-based Intel Corp., which struggled to keep pace with Qualcomm. Concerned that Intel might not deliver a 5G mobile modem chip in time for the 2020 iPhone, Apple earlier this month settled its lawsuit with Qualcomm and inked a multiyear deal to again buy modem chips from the San Diego company.

Intel immediately halted development of its 5G modem chip. Weeks earlier, Apple poached an Intel executive who had been a key player in the development of that chip. That executive joined Apple around the time Caballero left.By Luke StangelContributing writerApr 30, 2019, 6:24am PDT Deadline: Friday, August 30, 2019Silicon Valley C-Suite Awards 2019

Our C-Suite Awards recognize Silicon Valley's top executives for their contribution and commitment to the community and their outstanding professional performance.Submit a NominationRelated ContentApple held talks to buy Intel’s 5G modem business, but poached topApple held talks to buy Intel’s 5G modem business, but poached topChina, memory and a cloud slowdown weigh on IntelChina, memory and a cloud slowdown weigh on IntelQualcomm: Apple spent years plotting how to hurt our businessQualcomm: Apple spent years plotting how to hurt our businessExclusive: Apple supplier Jabil to close Silicon Valley siteExclusive: Apple supplier Jabil to close Silicon Valley siteIntel abandons plans fo 5G modem chips after Apple-Qualcomm settlementIntel abandons plans fo 5G modem chips after Apple-Qualcomm settlementBack to Top

One of the tragedies of our nation, is that a large part of the Ghanaian media, consistently fail to take advantage of the societal controversies, which erupt from time to time - to demand action from the state, for the implementation of rectifying-and-remedial-policies, which redound to society's benefit.

A classic example, is the recent controversy over the Hess Oil/Aker Oil 'agreement', sparked by the much-publicised concerns expressed so forcefully, by the leadership of local think-tank, Imani Ghana. Whether or not Imani misunderstands the issues it has raised, isn't what matters. What matters, is that at long last, we have an opportunity to talk about the egregious inequities of Ghana's oil-sector.

One would have thought that the controversy would be seized upon by the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media, to drum home the point to ordinary people that it is time all our oil agreements were revised, and substituted with production-sharing contracts (which would make all our oil and gas deposits become the collective properties of the sovereign people of Ghana, instead of belonging to foreign oil companies, as things stand today).

Ditto that the standard underpinning all future oil and gas agreements, would be modelled on the production-sharing agreements, covering Iraq's Rumaila oil fields.

This blog appeals to the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media, to fight to get our ruling elites to understand clearly that eventually, they will be turfed out of power, if they allow ownership of the oil and gas deposits of our country to remain in the hands of foreign oil companies. Do we not need trillions of cedis to fund free education from kindergarten to tertiary level - which is what most ordinary Ghanaians want? Haaba..

The New York Times Profitable Giants Like Amazon Pay $0 in Corporate Taxes. Some Voters Are Sick of It.Members of the Akron chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America spent two hours recently talking over a framework for a post-capitalist society.CreditAllison Farrand for The New York TimesImageMembers of the Akron chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America spent two hours recently talking over a framework for a post-capitalist society.CreditCreditAllison Farrand for The New York Times

By Stephanie Saul and Patricia Cohen

April 29, 2019

AKRON, Ohio — Colin Robertson wonders why he pays federal taxes on the $18,000 a year he makes cleaning carpets, while the tech giant Amazon got a tax rebate.

His concerns about a tilted economic playing field recently led Mr. Robertson to join the Akron chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. At a gathering this month, as members discussed Karl Marx and corporate greed over chocolate chip cookies, it wasn’t long before talk turned to income inequality and how the government helps the wealthy avoid taxes.

“One of the benefits of taxation is taking it and using it for the collective good,” said Mr. Robertson, 25, comparing his minimal income to the roughly $150 billion net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and the world’s richest person.

“He could be taxed at 99.9 percent and still have millions left over,” Mr. Robertson said, “and I’d be homeless.”

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It’s a topic that several presidential candidates, led by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have hammered recently as they travel the campaign trail, spurred by a report that 60 Fortune 500 companies paid no federal taxes on $79 billion in corporate income last year. Amazon, which is reported to be opening a center in an abandoned Akron mall that will employ 500 people, has become the poster child for corporate tax avoidance; last year it had an effective tax rate of below zero — receiving a rebate — on income of $10.8 billion.

For decades, profitable companies have been able to avoid corporate taxes. But the list of those paying zero roughly doubled last year as a result of provisions in President Trump’s 2017 tax bill that expanded corporate tax breaks and reduced the tax rate on corporate income.

“Amazon, Netflix and dozens of major corporations, as a result of Trump’s tax bill, pay nothing in federal taxes,” Mr. Sanders said this month during a Fox News town hall-style event. “I think that’s a disgrace.”Companies That Paid No Federal Taxes in 2018

These are the 30 most profitable companies that paid no federal income taxes in 2018. In many cases, the companies also received tax rebates that could be used to reduce their tax burdens in other years.

0

$5 billion

$10 billion

Amazon

Delta Air Lines

Chevron

General Motors

EOG Resources

Duke Energy

Occidental Petroleum

Dominion Energy

Honeywell

Deere & Company

American Electric Power

Public Service Enterprise Group

Kinder Morgan

Prudential Financial

Principal Financial

FirstEnergy

Xcel Energy

PulteGroup

WEC Energy

Molson Coors

Devon Energy

Pioneer Natural Resources

DTE Energy

PPL

Halliburton

Ameren

Netflix

IBM

CMS Energy

Salesforce

Profit

Federal tax

rebate

Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

By Scott Reinhard

Corporations’ ability to whittle down their tax bills has long been a target of criticism by Democrats, and this presidential campaign is no exception, particularly among left-wing candidates who argue that corporations should be accountable for wage inequality and its impact on low- and middle-income workers.

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Though both parties have sought to lower the top corporate tax rate in the last decade — President Barack Obama proposed lowering it from 35 percent to 28 percent — Republicans in 2017 pushed it down to 21 percent, in addition to expanding some generous tax breaks. The new law allowed immediate expensing of capital expenditures, for example, in order to goose investment. That was one of the primary reasons that more corporations paid no federal taxes, according to the report.

Mr. Trump and his Republican allies argued that the tax changes would stimulate investment and economic growth. That has happened, though not by as much as they predicted.

[Make sense of the people, issues and ideas shaping American politics with our newsletter.]

Here in Ohio, even though unemployment has hit an 18-year low, several counties still have jobless rates significantly higher than the national rate, 3.8 percent, and the statewide rate, 4.4 percent. Ohioans have witnessed so many factory closures over the years that they seem to live with a permanent sense of economic wariness. The question for Democrats is how to leverage that to their advantage as they try to retake the state, which Mr. Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016.

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David Betras, the Democratic chairman in Mahoning County, a traditionally blue stronghold of union voters that President Trump nearly carried in 2016, said that Democrats had not yet figured out how to use the economic angst of laid-off employees and minimum-wage workers to defeat Mr. Trump in Ohio in 2020.

“Believe it or not, if you listen to the president, he addresses that issue,” Mr. Betras said. “He does it with a lot of smoke and very many mirrors, but he’s at least talking about how good the economy is and what I’ve done for you. ‘I’m with you. I have your back.’”

Even as candidates focus on corporate taxation, Mr. Betras said the issue didn’t resonate with voters in the same way as more familiar topics like health care or immigration. (Mr. Betras, a lawyer, has endorsed Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio for the Democratic nomination.)Goodyear, which is based in Akron, paid no federal corporate income taxes for 2018.CreditAllison Farrand for The New York TimesImageGoodyear, which is based in Akron, paid no federal corporate income taxes for 2018.CreditAllison Farrand for The New York Times

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A Gallup poll last fall suggested that taxes were generally a more important issue for Republicans than for Democrats.

In an election in which Democrats will seek to win back voters who supported Mr. Obama in 2008 and 2012, then switched to Mr. Trump, some worry that calls to increase corporate taxes might turn off swing voters in this critical state, those like Thomas Chhay, a student at the University of Akron.

The list of profitable companies that pay no corporate taxes, compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, also includes Goodyear and three other Ohio companies, including the Akron-based electric utility FirstEnergy.

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FirstEnergy paid no taxes last year on $1.5 billion in income, according to the analysis, and will receive additional tax credits that can be used in the future. In a win for consumers, some of that will be returned to the utility’s customers.

Largest Tax Rebates, in Millions

0

$200

$400

$600

Duke Energy

Prudential Financial

IBM

EOG Resources

Deere & Company

Activision Blizzard

WEC Energy

Delta Air Lines

Chevron

Celanese

Largest Tax Rebates as a Percentage of 2018 Profit

150%

50%

100%

Gannett

IBM

AECOM

Activision Blizzard

Pitney Bowes

Celanese

JetBlue

Prudential Financial

Duke Energy

WEC Energy

Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

By Scott Reinhard

Several of the Democratic candidates have called for changes to the corporate system, and Ms. Warren has gone the furthest in issuing a detailed plan. Under her proposal, corporations would pay a new 7 percent tax on every dollar over $100 million in profits they earn anywhere in the world. She estimated the new tax would apply to roughly 1,200 companies and bring in $1 trillion over 10 years.

Under Ms. Warren’s plan, Amazon would have paid $698 million instead of $0 in federal taxes for 2018. In a statement, the company said it “pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate.” (In a separate statement, Netflix said that it did, indeed, pay federal taxes in 2018.)

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Mr. Sanders, in his 2016 presidential campaign and in this one, has routinely talked about closing loopholes and capturing some of the billions in profits that multinationals have kept overseas in tax havens.

Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator who is also running, has taken a different approach. She has tied a proposed increase in the corporate tax rate, to 25 percent from the current 21 percent, to plans to rebuild bridges, roads and airports. About $400 billion of her trillion-dollar infrastructure plan would be financed by the tax increase.

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who officially entered the race on Thursday, has not issued a formal proposal on corporate taxes. In remarks last May, however, he blamed a “yawning” income gap for tearing the country apart. “We have to deal with this tax code,” he said. “It’s wildly skewed toward taking care of those at the very top.”

[Check out the Democratic field with our candidate tracker.]

In surveys, more Americans support raising the corporate tax rate than lowering it or leaving it unchanged. And several Democratic candidates, like the former housing secretary Julián Castro, invoke “fair share” rhetoric in speeches or vow to undo the recent Republican tax law. Others, like Senator Kamala Harris of California, have focused more on the individual income tax and reducing the burden on working families.

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But raising the headline tax rate on corporations won’t eliminate the corporate zero-rate club, which also results from companies taking advantage of loopholes and the way global profits are taxed.

Two years ago, Mr. Trump appeared at a rally in working-class Youngstown, the seat of Mahoning County, and delivered a message full of economic reassurance.

“I was looking at some of those big, once incredible job-producing factories,” the president said. “Those jobs have left Ohio. They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back. Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”

In Ohio, it has not entirely worked out that way.

General Motors, one of the companies on the zero-tax list, recently idled a large plant near Youngstown that produced the Chevrolet Cruze, a decision that helped increase the company’s stock price even as G.M. paid no federal taxes on $4.32 billion in income.

AdvertisementAmazon is one of 60 profitable American companies that didn’t pay federal taxes for 2018, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.CreditPatrick Semansky/Associated PressImageAmazon is one of 60 profitable American companies that didn’t pay federal taxes for 2018, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.CreditPatrick Semansky/Associated Press

“What was promised to these people was more jobs,” said David Green, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, which represents workers at the plant, which is in Lordstown. “When you give them the tax break and they take the jobs away, that’s like a double whammy. That’s a lose-lose.”

Lordstown is in Trumbull County, where the unemployment rate was 6.6 percent in March and many of those who work are eligible for public assistance.

Tyler Savin, a real estate agent, said the idling of the plant had added to his home listings and that many sellers wouldn’t get their asking prices as they left Ohio for other G.M. locations.

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Mr. Savin, 22, was among the customers recently at Tommy Dogg’s Bar and Grill in nearby Niles, the birthplace of both Mr. Ryan, the local favorite-son candidate, and William McKinley, a Republican president who was known for imposing tariffs on foreign goods.

Mr. Savin likes Mr. Sanders, Mr. Biden and former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, but will ultimately vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, he said in a whisper lest pro-Trump patrons overhear.

“I think corporations should pay their taxes, like Amazon,” he said. But he said health care and support for abortion rights were more important to him.

Jeff Williams, 57, who manages a convenience store on the midnight shift, had heard about Amazon’s tax breaks on the radio. As he sat outside his home in Niles, he also was doing some comparison.

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He was treated for cancer, heart disease and two hernias last year but wasn’t able to deduct his expenses, he said. Amazon, meantime, availed itself of a full suite of tax breaks. “Amazon doesn’t pay taxes, but I pay taxes,” Mr. Williams said.

Akron, about an hour west, is faring better economically. Mayor Daniel Horrigan won’t confirm or deny it, but Amazon is believed to be the company he has recruited to move into the old Rolling Acres Mall, which closed in 2008. Amazon would not comment on whether it planned to open a facility there.

Mr. Horrigan has been working to invigorate the economy of Akron, historically known as the Rubber City for its role in tire manufacturing. The tire jobs have mostly moved elsewhere.

Goodyear, which made the list of 60 by paying no federal corporate income taxes, employs 64,000 people worldwide, but only 3,000 of them remain here, mostly in the company’s headquarters. A spokesman said the company’s 2018 tax situation stemmed from “historical losses in U.S. operations.”

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The Democratic Socialists have close to 100 members in Akron, many of them supporters of Mr. Sanders. Those attending this month’s meeting ranged from a stay-at-home mother who said she hadn’t been able to pay her water bill for a year to a college professor, David Pereplyotchik.

Mr. Pereplyotchik, 37, said he believed the group should come up with a viable alternative to the American corporate tax and wage system.

“If we’re fighting for something, what version of the thing are we fighting for?” asked Mr. Pereplyotchik, who teaches philosophy. “It seems like if you just make them pay employees more, they’re just not going to hire employees.”

Mr. Robertson, the carpet cleaner, has his own idea: nationalizing the companies. “I think forcing them to pay higher alone is inefficient,” he said, “and taxation alone is inefficient.”

Related Coverage

Elizabeth Warren Wants a Wealth Tax. How Would That Even Work?Feb. 18, 2019Image

Bayer and Monsanto are facing the musicBut, Bayer intends to re-write history(To read about Jon's mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)As most of you know, Bayer now owns Monsanto. To make it happen, it forked out $66 billion in 2018. Among the new parent's problems? Lawsuits against Monsanto's best-selling herbicide, Roundup.

Catch this, from fiercepharma[dot]com: "Recently, in a key bellwether trial, a U.S. federal jury in San Francisco found Bayer liable for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman's non-Hodgkin lymphoma [caused by Monsanto's Roundup] and awarded him $80 million in damages. Bayer said it plans to appeal, as it is doing with a [similar] California state suit that awarded the plaintiff $78 million. Still, there are more than 11,200 other similar suits [against Roundup], according to Bayer's last tally."

Therefore, key Bayer shareholders are angry at Bayer's board for greenlighting the 2018 buyout of Monsanto. Bayer intends to eradicate the name "Monsanto," and do business under a fully merged single name, its own. But for now, that hasn't stopped the flood of lawsuits against Bayer aimed at its adopted child, Monsanto/Roundup.

What about sales of Roundup? As early as 2016, for several reasons, a sharp decline had already set in. One reason: in 2015, the World Health Organization had declared glyphosate, the prime ingredient in Roundup "a probably carcinogen." Monsanto moved to cut 16% of its work force.

Bayer appears to be "taking one for the team." It certainly bought Monsanto knowing full well that Roundup was going to be a big problem. It knew Monsanto had garnered a horrendous reputation from one end of the planet to the other-owing in part to Roundup, and also the disastrous pioneering of GMO crops. But big daddy Bayer didn't flinch. After all, it has territory to defend---it's in the same basic business as Monsanto was: genetic manipulation. To protect and sanitize that Brave New World territory, long-term, Bayer aims to swallow Monsanto whole, no matter how much penalty-money that costs, thus making Monsanto disappear for future generations.

"Monsanto? Oh yes. Wasn't that some kind of farming company? Or a music group?"

That's the game here. A handful of giant biotech companies (and their shadowy backers) intend to OWN the future, via various forms of radical gene-alteration, in plants, animals, and humans. They want nothing to hinder that agenda. Monsanto was a stain. It brought down heavy attacks on the whole "genetic community." Therefore, it had to go. The only question was: who would come up with the huge buyout cash and make the sacrifice?

Bayer.

Once the core of the infamous Nazi cartel, IG Farben, Bayer had a history of re-writing history. Long term, it would know how to make Monsanto vanish, as if it had never existed.

That operation is now underway.Use this link to order Jon's Matrix Collections.Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.You can find this article and more at NoMoreFakeNews.

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Digital risk: Transforming risk management for the 2020s

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Significant improvements in risk management can be gained quickly through selective digitization—but capabilities must be test hardened before release.Downloadable Resources

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Digitization has become deeply embedded in banking strategy, as nearly all businesses and activities have been slated for digital transformations. The significant advantages of digitization, with respect to customer experience, revenue, and cost, have become increasingly compelling. The momentum to adopt the new technologies and operating models needed to capture these benefits continues to build. The risk function, which has seen significant growth in costs over the past decade, should be no exception. Indeed, we are starting to see digital transformations in risk create real business value by improving efficiency and the quality of risk decisions. A digitized risk function also provides better monitoring and control and more effective regulatory compliance.

Experience shows that the structural changes needed to bring costs down and improve effectiveness in risk can be accomplished much like digital transformations in other parts of the bank. The distinguishing context of the risk environment, however, has important implications. First, risk practitioners in most regulatory jurisdictions have been under extreme pressure to meet evolving regulatory requirements and have had little time for much else. Second, chief risk officers have been wary of the test-and-learn approaches characteristic of digital transformation, as the cost of errors in the risk environment can be unacceptably high. As a result, progress in digitizing risk processes has been particularly slow.

This status quo may be about to change, however, as global banking leaders begin to recognize how substantial value can be unlocked with a targeted digital agenda for risk featuring fit-for-purpose modular approaches. In addition to the objective of capturing value, this agenda incorporates risk-specific goals. These include ensuring the ongoing effectiveness of the control environment and helping the risk function apply technology to better address regulatory expectations in key areas—like risk measurement, aggregation, and reporting.What is digital risk?

Digital risk is a term encompassing all digital enablements that improve risk effectiveness and efficiency—especially process automation, decision automation, and digitized monitoring and early warning. The approach uses work-flow automation, optical-character recognition, advanced analytics (including machine learning and artificial intelligence), and new data sources, as well as the application of robotics to processes and interfaces. Essentially, digital risk implies a concerted adjustment of processes, data, analytics and IT, and the overall organizational setup, including talent and culture.Three dimensions of change: Processes, data, organization

To realize the full benefits of process and decision automation, banks need to ensure that systems, processes, and behaviors are appropriately fitted for their intended purpose. In the risk environment, prioritized use cases are isolated in such areas as credit underwriting, stress testing, operational risk, compliance, and control. In most banks, current processes have developed organically, without a clearly designed end state, so process flows are not always rational and efficient. Operational structures will need to be redesigned before automation and decision support can be accordingly enabled.Stay current on your favorite topicsSubscribe

Data, analytics, and IT architecture are the key enablers for digital risk management. Highly fragmented IT and data architectures cannot provide an efficient or effective framework for digital risk. A clear institutional commitment is thus required to define a data vision, upgrade risk data, establish robust data governance, enhance data quality and metadata, and build the right data architecture. Fortunately, processes and analytics techniques can now support these goals with modern technology in several key areas, including big data platforms, the cloud, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and natural-language processing.

The organization and operating model will require new capabilities to drive rapid digitization. Although risk innovation takes place in a very specific, highly sensitive area, risk practitioners still need to create a robust culture of innovation. This means putting in place the right talent and nurturing an innovative “test and learn” mind-set. Governance processes must enable nimble responses to a fast-moving technological and regulatory environment. Managing this culture of innovation in a way that is appropriate for risk constitutes a key challenge for the digitized risk function.Adapting digital change to the risk context

Most institutions are digitizing their risk functions at a relatively slow pace, taking modular approaches to targeted areas. A few have undertaken large-scale transformation, achieving significant and sustainable advances in both efficiency and effectiveness. Either way, in the risk context, care must be taken when adapting test-and-learn pilots commonly used in digital transformations in other parts of the bank. Robust controls must be applied to such pilots, as the tolerance for bugs and errors in risk is necessarily very low. When digitizing processes relating to comprehensive capital analysis and review (CCAR), for example, solutions cannot be introduced into production before thorough testing has convinced designers and practitioners of their complete reliability and effectiveness. In certain other risk areas—such as monitoring and early-warning systems in commercial credit risk—banks can use test-and-learn approaches effectively.Sizing the opportunity

Our experience suggests that by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of current risk- management approaches, digital risk initiatives can reduce operating costs for risk activities by 20 to 30 percent. The state of risk management at most global, multiregional, and regional banks is abundant with opportunity. Current processes are resource intensive and insufficiently effective, as indicated by average annual fines above $400 million for compliance risk activities alone (Exhibit 1).Exhibit 1We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at: McKinsey_Website_Accessibility@mckinsey.com

The potential benefits of digital risk initiatives include efficiency and productivity gains, enhanced risk effectiveness, and revenue gains. The benefits of greater efficiency and productivity include possible cost reductions of 25 percent or more in end-to-end credit processes and operational risk, through deeper automation and analytics. Risk effectiveness can be strengthened with superior transparency, gained through better management and regulatory reporting and the greater accuracy of model outputs due to better data. Revenue lift can be achieved through better pricing or an enhanced customer and frontline experience—for example, by reducing the know-your-customer (KYC) cycle time from one week to under one day, or the mortgage-application process to under 30 minutes, from 10 to 12 days. Improved employee satisfaction can also be achieved through focusing talent on high-value activities.Target risk processes: Credit risk, stress testing, and operational risk and compliance

The possible action areas for digital risk are extensive, but in our view three specific areas are optimal for near-term efforts: credit risk, stress testing, and operational risk and compliance. Alhough no one bank has fully digitized all three of these areas, we are seeing leading banks prioritize digital initiatives to realize discrete parts of the total savings available. The following discussion is based on actual digital risk initiatives across risk types and processes.Credit risk

Credit delivery is hampered by manual processes for data collection, underwriting, and documentation, as well as data issues affecting risk performance and slow cycle times affecting the customer experience. Digital credit risk management uses automation, connectivity, and digital delivery and decision making to alleviate these pain points. Value is created in three ways: by protecting revenue, improving risk assessments, and reducing operational costs.Would you like to learn more about our Risk Practice?Visit our Digital Risk page

To protect revenue in consumer credit, digital risk strengthens customer retention. It improves the customer experience with real-time decisions, self-service credit applications, and instant credit approvals. The improvements are enabled through integration with third parties for credit adjudication and the use of dynamic risk-adjusted pricing and limit setting. One European bank is exploring the potential for digital risk to expand revenue in consumer credit within the same risk appetite. Digitized credit processes will permit faster decision making than the competition while the bank maintains its superior risk assessment.

Value is also created by improving risk assessment. Advanced analytics and machine-learning tools can increase the accuracy of credit risk models used for credit approvals, portfolio monitoring, and workouts. It can also reduce the frequency of judgment-based errors. The integration of new data sources enables better insights for credit decisions, while real-time data processing, reporting, and monitoring further improve overall risk-management capabilities. Operational costs are also reduced as credit processes are digitized. A greater share of time and resources can be dedicated to value-added activities, as inputs and outputs become standardized and paperless.

In addition to improving default predictions, we have seen credit risk improvements in these areas creating a revenue lift of 5 to 10 percent and lowering costs by 15 to 20 percent (Exhibit 2).Exhibit 2We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at: McKinsey_Website_Accessibility@mckinsey.comStress testing, including CCAR

Banks find that significant value can be captured through a targeted digitization effort for stress testing, including CCAR. The current approach is highly manual, fragmented, and sequential, presenting challenges with data quality, aggregation, and reporting time frames and capacity. The processes are prime candidates for digital automation and work-flow tools.

The underlying stress-testing process is the starting point. The improvement program will aim at optimizing resources. Dedication of resources will be prioritized based on materiality of risk. Institutions can achieve additional efficiency through parallel processing, centralization, and cross-training of staff, as well as better calendaring. Templates and outputs are standardized, and “golden” sources for data are designated. The resulting process becomes increasingly transparent and effective. Process optimization is supported by digital-automation initiatives for data loading, overlays, Y­14A reports, and the end-to-end review and challenge process. Real-time visualization and sensitivity analysis are digitally enabled as part of the transformation. In addition to optimizing stress testing directly, banks are also looking for opportunities to harmonize the data, processes, and decision-making models with business planning.

We have seen digitization in CCAR and stress testing bring significant cost improvements and—even more important—free up capacity so that experts can apply more insight and improve the quality and use of outputs (Exhibit 3).Exhibit 3We strive to provide individuals with disabilities equal access to our website. If you would like information about this content we will be happy to work with you. Please email us at: McKinsey_Website_Accessibility@mckinsey.comOperational risk and compliance

At many global banks, manual processes and fragmented systems have proliferated across operational risk and compliance controls and activities. In anti-money laundering (AML), for example, processes and data have become unwieldy, costs have skyrocketed, and efforts have become ineffective. Significant opportunities to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of AML operations lie in thorough end-to-end streamlining of the alert-generation and case-investigation processes.

In alert generation, digital risk improvements ensure that reference data available for use in the analytic engine is of high quality. Advanced-analytics tools such as machine learning are used to test and refine the case-segmentation variables and support “auto-adjudication” where possible. In addition, digitization and work-flow tools can support smart investigations and automated filing of suspicious-activity reports, an improvement that enhances the productivity of the investigation units.

Our experience of digital risk initiatives in AML is that they invariably improve effectiveness and efficiency, typically in the range of 20 to 25 percent. The overall impact of such improvement is even greater, however, given the large cost base of this function across institutions and the risk of not identifying bad actors.Digital risk is different

A digital risk program must be designed in recognition of those aspects of the risk function that distinguish it from other functions, such as frontline digital sales. For risk, regulators will not accept the characteristic approaches of traditional digital transformations. Live launches of “minimum viable products” to be tested and refined in production is not an appropriate path for most risk activities.

Most approaches to digitization focus on improving the customer experience. Digital risk will involve some actual external customers, such as in credit delivery, but in most areas the focus will be on internal customers, stakeholders, and regulators. Moreover, digital risk is never a self-contained effort—it will depend on data from all businesses and functions. Development thus proceeds at a pace limited by the careful management of these interdependencies. Innovative approaches such as agile and digital labs provide effective options to implement solutions incrementally.Direct impact will be felt in cost and risk reduction

While digital risk offers clear opportunities for significant cost reduction, the impact on revenue is less obvious but implicitly understood by leaders. Frontline digital transformations are often aimed at direct revenue improvement; proof of this impact from digital risk programs is more elusive, since risk is an enabling function. Faster turnaround times for loan applications is a typical digital risk improvement. This will likely drive higher lending volumes and, consequently, increased revenue—even if the correlation cannot be precisely determined. Given the indirect impact on revenue, digital risk programs should focus primarily on reducing risk and cost. The exception is digital credit, where the case for revenue lift will be clearer.Designing a program

An effective digital risk program begins with chief risk officers asking the right questions—those that point the institution toward specific initiatives for digital innovation. “Can we reduce the time needed for structured credit approvals to a few minutes?” “How can we increase straight-through processing rates?” “How can we improve the efficiency and streamlining of KYC activities to reduce pain points in the account-opening process?” “How can we make CCAR less sequential and resource intensive?” “How can we improve the timeliness of reporting to meet regulatory objectives?” “What value can we extract from better use of internal data?” “What is the incremental benefit of including new data sources?” The answers will help shape initiatives, which will be prioritized according to current resource-allocation levels, losses and regulatory fines, and implementation considerations, such as investment and time.McKinsey on Risk, Volume 2Read the compendium

Digital risk programs can incorporate the familiar design features of digital transformations, such as zero-based process and interface redesign and an agile framework. The testing and refinement, however, takes place entirely within a controlled environment. The design approach, which can be modular, must also be comprehensive, based on a thorough review of risk activities, appetite, and policies.

The designs cannot be migrated into production until they have been thoroughly tested and syndicated, often with regulatory bodies. Because of its highly sensitive environment, risk is digitized end to end over a longer timeline than is seen in customer-service areas. Specific capabilities are developed to completion and released discretely, so that risk management across the enterprise is built incrementally, with short-term benefits.The anatomy of a transformation

A digital risk program can get a running start by capturing high-value opportunities first. The anatomy of the transformation will resemble that of other digital transformations, with the usual three stages: 1) priority initiatives are identified according to the value at stake and the feasibility for near-term implementation, 2) digital solutions are designed to capture that value and tested and revised according to stakeholder input, and 3) the improvement is introduced into production, with continued capability building to embed the design, engineering, and change management into the operating model and invest in the right capabilities and mind-sets.

The opportunities identified in stage one are matched in stage two with digital and other solutions that will reduce waste and optimize resources while improving standardization and quality. These solutions will involve work-flow automation, digital interfaces, and the use of advanced analytics and machine learning. The technology design may use a “two speed” architecture to support fast innovation in IT while allowing the main IT infrastructure to operate normally. New functionality is rigorously tested prior to migration into production, to ensure a smooth, error-free transition for critical risk functions. Iterative test-and-learn processes take place within environments featuring higher control standards than typical elsewhere. Stakeholder feedback and often regulator syndication are obtained prior to production release.

In the third stage, where the innovation is introduced into production, the organization focuses on change management. In itself, this is no different from typical digitization programs in other business areas. The focus is on embedding the design into the operating model and continuing to invest in digital capabilities to build momentum for further launches. Having the right talent in place, whether drawn from internal or external sources, is the key to a successful transition to digital risk.

The path to digital risk will be a multiyear journey, but financial institutions can begin to capture significant value within a few months, launching tailored initiatives for high-value targets. As the risk function becomes progressively digitized, it will be able to achieve higher levels of efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy. In the future, risk management will be a lean and agile discipline, relieving cost pressures, improving regulatory compliance, and contributing to the bank’s ability to meet escalating competitive challenges. The first steps toward that future can be made today.Stay current on your favorite topicsSubscribeAbout the author(s)

Saptarshi Ganguly is a partner in McKinsey’s Boston office, Holger Harreis is a partner in the Düsseldorf office, and Ben Margolis is an associate partner in the New York office, where Kayvaun Rowshankish is a partner.Related ArticlesArticleCompliance in 2016: More than just following rulesArticleThe future of bank risk managementArticleThe value in digitally transforming credit risk management

Europe’s center-left parties, faced with falling support, are shifting left to win back working-class voters lost to hard-left and populist movements—a move that paid off in Spain’s national elections on Sunday, where the Socialists trounced their conservative rivals.

The Socialists, who have governed since last summer, came first in a fragmented field after pitching a platform of workers’ rights, higher taxes on the wealthy and environmental protection—issues central to the party’s social-democratic roots. The party will need to form a coalition with smaller allies to reach a majority, however.

“People don’t make ends meet,” said Antonio Benítez, a 57-year-old employee of Spain’s health service, who lives in Andalusia. “It’s about time they speak about the fundamental pillars of the left, of being socialist, with none of these deviations to the center.”

Center-left parties in Germany, Italy and the U.K. are similarly attempting to lure back voters who, feeling betrayed by centrist moves that they feel have made them poorer and threatened their job security, have defected to upstart parties on the left and the right.

“We have clearly turned to the left,” said Pau Marí-Klose, a Socialist who won election to Spain’s parliament on Sunday. “Our rhetoric is highly charged with left-wing messages, adding new themes, such as precariousness and climate change. We did it to get close to the sectors who dropped us, like young people.”

The Socialists won 123 seats in Spain’s 350-seat parliament, up from 85 in the last elections in 2016, while the conservative People’s Party crashed to only 66 seats, from 137 last time. The People’s Party lost many voters to far-right movement Vox, which won 24 seats, compared with none in 2016, thanks mainly to anger among Spanish nationalists about secessionist ambitions in the region of Catalonia.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will need to build a possibly unwieldy coalition to have a parliamentary majority, however. Talks on forming a government could take many weeks.

The existential angst afflicting Europe’s center-left parties echoes the debate within the U.S. Democratic Party over how best to respond to the challenge of President Trump: Move left to win some voters at the risk of losing others, or aim for the center? In the midterm elections, Democrats brought fresh, left-wing representatives to Washington such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

When big government fell out of favor in the Cold War’s aftermath, center-left parties in the West increasingly accepted free-market economic thinking, while seeking to smooth the rough edges of capitalism rather than radically changing it.

In Europe, leaders such as the U.K.’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schröder led a shift away from generous welfare states and state intervention toward deregulation, privatization and competition. Center-left leaders in France, Italy, Spain and other Western countries followed.

Over time, working-class voters in Europe saw the parties they traditionally supported as increasingly out of touch with common people. Supporters felt betrayed when some, such as Spain’s Socialists and Italy’s Democrats, supported welfare cuts to shore up government finances in the wake of the financial crisis.
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What’s the main issue Europe’s center-left parties should focus on ahead of European Parliament elections next month? Join the conversation below.

Populists of the far left and the far right have made inroads among disillusioned voters with attacks on the establishment, accelerating the collapse of the traditional European center-left.

“It’s like these parties received a blow to their heads and got disoriented,” said Catherine De Vries, a political scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam. “Some of them decided to shift back to their core values to win back voters.”

The U.K. Labour Party, bruised by its unexpected defeat in the 2015 general election, was among the first to move left. Its leader, Jeremy Corbyn drew thousands of young party members with his antiausterity and antiwar messages. He also has embraced the re-nationalization of the water and rail industries. In the U.K. general elections in 2017, Labour won 40% of the vote, up from 30% in 2015, but still came in second to the ruling Conservative Party.

“Socialism has come back onto the agenda,” said John McDonnell, a Labour Party politician.

Germany’s center-left Social Democrats, or SPD, and Italy’s Democratic Party are turning away from pro-business economic policies they steadily implemented in the past two decades, after losing a string of elections.

In 2017, the SPD scored its worst postwar result in a general election, after losing many voters who had grown disillusioned with its centrist course on economics. The left-leaning Greens and the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, both made significant gains.

In Italy, the Democratic Party has lost votes since 2013 to the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement and the hard-right League, who together now lead a coalition government. Among the Democrats’ policies that alienated longtime voters were pension overhauls that raised the retirement age. The Democratic Party’s popular support has halved since Spring 2014, when it garnered 41% in European elections, compared with a 21% showing in an average of recent surveys by pollsofpolls.eu.
Laborers collect melons in the agricultural region of El Campo de Cartagena in 2017, a region that was close to ecological collapse due to a long drought. Photo: David Ramos/Getty Images

Nicola Zingaretti, the newly elected leader of the Democrats, said he is considering an electoral alliance with lawmakers who left his party over policies they found too centrist, such as rules that made firing workers easier. Italy’s youth unemployment is more than 30%.

“Populist forces have done better than progressives due to a desire for greater fairness,” Mr. Zingaretti said in mid-April. “We need to go back, and talk to these people, to these workers, whose votes we lost.”

Mr. Sánchez raised Spain’s minimum wage by 22% around Christmas, in a move that resonated with lower-income Spaniards. His campaign themes of workers’ rights and higher taxes on corporations marked a contrast with Spain’s previous Socialist premier, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who said more than a decade ago that “cutting taxes is left-wing.”

Write to Giovanni Legorano at giovanni.legorano@wsj.com
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For decades, the Democrats’ path to the presidency has been about offering something new. But the two front-runners are among the oldest candidates ever.Edward-Isaac DovereApr 27, 2019Donald Trump is the oldest first-term president ever. Joe Biden (above) and Bernie Sanders are hoping to beat his record.Yuri Gripas / Reuters

“Joe Biden. He understands what’s happening today.”

The newspaper ad ran a few weeks before the 1972 Senate election in Delaware, when the upstart 29-year-old was challenging a 63-year-old incumbent. The ad, which appeared in The News Journal, Delaware’s major newspaper, happened to run under a column that described Biden’s newly combative strategy in the closing days of the race.

Biden’s approach then, according to the columnist, was “in effect, ‘Dear old dad may have been right for his time—and I love him—but things are different now.’”

The world was changing in the 1970s. It’s changing even more now. But the early months (at least) of the 2020 race are going to be dominated by three white men in their 70s arguing about how to make America great again: Donald Trump is turning 73 in June, Biden is 76, Bernie Sanders is 77.

Trump wants age to be an issue—he thinks it helps him. “I look at Joe, I don’t know about him … They’re all making me look very young, both in terms of age and in terms of energy,” he said on Friday, getting onto a helicopter on the White House lawn. “I am a young, vibrant man.”

Before they’re able to take on Trump, however, Biden and Sanders will have to confront a field full of candidates young enough to be their children. Five of the Democrats running weren’t even born when Biden first ran for Senate and Sanders was still just a gadfly in local Vermont politics. Beto O’Rourke was about a month old when that News Journal column ran. And the race is happening as young people are voting more: Census data released earlier this week found that from 2014 to 2018, there was a 79 percent jump in voting among people ages 18 to 29.

Biden and Sanders aides told me they see the age of the other Democratic front-runner as largely neutralizing the age issue, even as internal worries persist that it could prove one of their biggest liabilities with voters. They believe Trump helps blunt the issue too: He still refuses to release his medical records, and he’s better known for live-tweeting Fox News than for the kind of marathon schedules that both Biden and Sanders like to keep up on the campaign trail.

But at least 18 Democrats running for president think voters want something fresh: not only someone younger, but someone who represents a whole new start—that’s the best way the party can contrast itself with Trump. Several candidates’ aides have quietly pushed an argument about Biden in particular that’s similar to his own old “dear old dad” attack.

Read: Joe Biden is running for president

Biden has made clear in private conversations with aides that he doesn’t like being seen as old, and that’s part of why he won’t engage in any suggestion that he should serve only one term.

“It’s a legitimate question to ask, about my age,” Biden said yesterday on The View, during his first interview of the race. “It’s a question of—hopefully with age comes wisdom, and experience—can things get better?” Responding directly to Trump’s swipe earlier in the day, he said, “If he looks young and vibrant compared to me, I should probably go home.”

For decades, the Democratic path to winning the White House has been about offering something new—from John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Biden is counting on the power of nostalgia—of the Obama era, of a calmer time—to overcome that in this race, especially with Democrats nervous about winning and feeling exhausted from the past three years. Trump is already the oldest first-term president ever. Maybe the next one will be older.An ad from joe biden’s 1972 senate campaign

Referring to Biden, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell told me, “He’s not running against a spring chicken” and “looks, like, 15 years younger than Trump.” And anyway, Rendell said, Biden is in the race “because of his character and his intelligence, not because of his youth.” Rendell is 75 years old himself. (Biden’s campaign declined to comment.)

The Democrat under 70 who’s currently doing the best, of course, is the youngest one: 37-year-old Pete Buttigieg, who’s less than half the age of Biden and Sanders. His whole campaign is centered on the idea that he’ll be alive long enough to experience the full consequences of decisions the next president makes. When asked at an appearance back home in South Bend, Indiana, on Monday why he thinks he’s currently polling third, Buttigieg argued that “there’s a lot of excitement around the idea of something completely different. And there’s a lot of energy for generational change.” When I pointed out that two candidates in their 70s, Sanders and Biden, are ahead of him in the polls, Buttigieg cited their high name ID as an explanation. “The thing that’s surprising us is that perhaps being one of the very least well known, we’ve been able to vault to the top tier—and I think the generational energy helps to explain that,” he said.

Buttigieg has a bit in his stump speech that there is no winning message for 2020 that features the word back or again. On Thursday, asked by reporters what his candidacy’s message to the world was, Biden said, “America’s coming back like we used to be.”

Sanders had more young supporters in 2016—and has more young supporters in this run—than almost anyone else. But age is still on the minds of his aides. His campaign pollster, Ben Tulchin, told me he agrees that Trump is the best way to blunt the potential weakness, and argued that, from the numbers he’s seen, he doesn’t think Democrats will be as caught up on age as some might believe. Echoing an argument Biden’s fans and allies have also made, Tulchin said that in this race, Democrats are looking for people they’d trust with the management of the country. “If you asked, ‘Do you want someone experienced or someone who brings a new perspective?,’ overwhelmingly, people go with experience,” he said.

“Trump, Bernie, and Biden being old white guys—it’s not going to matter to anybody, because it’s all the same,” said Tad Devine, Sanders’s top strategist in 2016.

An older female candidate, however, would almost definitely be viewed differently. In 2016, conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s health were driven largely by her age and gender, and she’s younger than Trump, Biden, and Sanders. No similar theories emerged when Sanders, in March, fell in the shower while on a campaign swing in South Carolina. Though he had to appear at several events with a large gauze bandage on his forehead, covering several stitches, most people likely didn’t even know the accident happened.

The question about age isn’t just a political one. Multiple White House alumni have told me over the past few years that they worry about how an older person could handle the job, given the stress and the schedule involved. While they’re generally wary of saying anything publicly for fear of insulting the specific candidates or being accused of ageism, one former aide joked to me in December about wanting to write an op-ed with the headline, “In Defense of Ageism at the White House.”

Others have been more open in grappling with this. “Can politicians our age be effective presidents? It’s a question that can provoke strong, often pained reactions from my contemporaries,” wrote Robert Kaiser, a 76-year-old former Washington Post editor, in an op-ed earlier this month. He called into question the mental acuity and stamina of people in their 70s and older. At the end of their respective second terms, Trump would be 78, Biden 86, Sanders 87. Older adults “have difficulties with tasks that require dividing or switching attention, like cooking while chatting on the phone,” Kaiser wrote. “On tests of reasoning, memory and cognitive speed, the average scores for adults in their early 70s were near the 20th percentile of the population, whereas the average performance for adults in their early 20s was near the 75th percentile.”

Read: When Obama talked Biden out of running for president

Of course, these are averages, and the trio of septuagenarians in the race could easily argue they are the exception. For his part, Ben LaBolt, a former press aide to Obama, told me age shouldn’t necessarily be a disqualifying factor. “We’ve had older presidents who’ve done a good job. There are plenty of older CEOs running massive organizations across the country,” LaBolt said. But, he added, age does make “more relevant who their VP candidate is, because the heartbeat-away-from-the-presidency question becomes very real. It makes it more critical that an older president surrounds himself with younger people who are technically savvy and realize the emerging moment that we’re living in.”

When I pressed LaBolt—he saw firsthand how demanding the presidency can be, not to mention how it visibly ages every American president—he acknowledged that “there are people who served past their prime.” He pointed to West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who died in office at age 93 and was known to be in poor shape in his later years. “It’s up to the candidate and the electorate to judge things like physical health and mental acuity,” he said. “And it’s on the candidates to prove that during the campaign.”

“For me, when that issue comes up, it always leaves a funny taste in my mouth,” said Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, who has endorsed Biden. “We’re always drilled that you’re not supposed to be looking at a person’s age, or race, or sex. The question is supposed to be, ‘Can you do the job?’”

On Thursday evening, I caught up with Brendan Boyle, a 42-year-old congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs, as he was on his way to Biden’s first big fundraiser in the city. Boyle, who in his first Democratic primary campaign beat an older candidate trying to stage a political comeback, told me he doesn’t think Biden’s age is going to hurt him with younger voters.

“It is absolutely true that much of the energy and enthusiasm is coming from younger and more diverse voters,” Boyle said. “But it’s simultaneously true that the overwhelmingly majority of House seats we picked up in 2018 are areas where Biden is popular.” Many of the people who won those seats, though, were younger. The average age in the House dropped 10 years after the 2018 elections.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Edward-Isaac Dovere is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

The special counsel and the attorney general go back a long way, but their bond could be tested by dueling appearances before Congress.Russell BermanApr 28, 2019William Barr, left, and Robert Mueller served together in the Justice Department under President George H. W. Bush in the early 1990s.William Barr (left) and Robert Mueller served together in the Justice Department under President George H. W. Bush in the early 1990s.Barry Thumma / AP

When Attorney General William Barr released Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report earlier this month, he was presenting the work of a widely respected former FBI director and federal prosecutor—who happens to be his longtime friend. As Barr himself revealed to lawmakers at his Senate confirmation hearing in January, the two men have had a relationship for years. Their families socialize together, their wives attend Bible study together, and the Muellers were guests at the weddings of Barr’s daughters.

But Barr’s handling of Mueller’s report has cast their relationship in a more adversarial light, and it will be tested further in the coming weeks as Democrats seek separate testimony from both men on the central decisions they made at the culmination of Mueller’s two-year investigation of President Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election. Barr will appear separately before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on Wednesday and Thursday, with Mueller potentially following later in May.

Former close associates of Mueller see the attorney general’s characterization of his findings—which was generally more favorable to Trump than the report itself—as undercutting the special counsel, if not an outright betrayal. They were particularly put off by Barr’s performance at the press conference he held 90 minutes before releasing the report, which they similarly saw as overly deferential to Trump.

Mueller did not attend, and the attorney general said he didn’t talk to Mueller about his decision to clear Trump of obstruction. “That’s not two friends collaborating collegially on a project,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a former counterintelligence chief at the FBI who briefed Mueller twice a day during their tenure together. “It’s almost worse than undercutting Mueller. It’s saying Mueller’s not even relevant in this.”

David A. Graham: What if everything Mueller told us had been new?

In a phone interview, Figliuzzi described the dynamic between Mueller and Barr as one of “a boy scout” (Mueller) versus “a street fighter” (Barr). The attorney general himself has acknowledged that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “disagreed with some of the special counsel’s legal theories.” Now it is up to Congress to sort through the conflicts and to determine the legacy of the investigation they each had a hand in steering. “Mueller is a guy who plays by the rules, and he was playing by the rules in this report,” Figliuzzi told me. “He kind of trusts that the system will take care of itself, and he kicks his report over across the street to DOJ. That’s where things go south.”

It was Barr who first brought up his decades-long friendship with the man whose investigation he was to oversee, whose conclusions he was to summarize, and whose report he was to present to Congress and the American public. “I have known Bob Mueller personally and professionally for 30 years,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. “We worked closely together throughout my previous tenure at the Department of Justice under President Bush. We’ve been friends since.”

When Barr served as attorney general under President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and 1992, Mueller was the assistant attorney general heading up the criminal division. Both Barr and Mueller were in their 40s at the time, and colleagues from that period describe them as exceptionally smart and well-prepared lawyers who shared an easy rapport with each other, as well as a reverence for the Department of Justice. “Bob has always had this real strong desire to see the rule of law vindicated. That’s where the two of them are two peas in a pod,” said Paul McNulty, who served as the department’s chief spokesman in the early 1990s and later oversaw Mueller as deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration.

Barr and Mueller would sit in daily morning meetings in which Barr would often rib the more straitlaced Mueller about cases. “They got along very well,” recalled Timothy Flanigan, who was then an assistant attorney general overseeing the Office of Legal Counsel. “Bill had a keener sense of humor than Bob. He’d poked fun at Bob, and Bob took it in good grace.”

Mueller, a Marine who became a prosecutor, and Barr, who had worked in policy jobs during the Reagan and Bush administrations, were aligned on the tough-on-crime priorities that were in vogue in the early 1990s. Separately, former colleagues described each of them as the kind of boss who doesn’t “suffer fools.” But they had different strengths and different personalities. “One’s a soldier, one was essentially an intellectual, legal heavyweight,” McNulty told me. While Barr was known as a quick thinker who thought through arguments and made decisions rapidly, Mueller was more deliberative and process-oriented. “Mueller could be more down in the weeds,” McNulty said, “and Barr was more up above the weeds, looking at the constitutional issue, the big legal issue.

“They disagreed, but there weren’t hard feelings. It wasn’t personal,” McNulty added. “They both knew that the other person was the real deal.”

While Figliuzzi suggested to me that Barr had overstated his closeness with Mueller to ease his confirmation, both Flanigan and McNulty said the friendship is real. Flanigan has seen Mueller at Christmas parties at Barr’s home over the years, while McNulty said they were “definitely more friends than acquaintances.”

Both also defended Barr from the criticism leveled by Democrats and former Mueller associates about the way the attorney general handled the report. “It seemed to me he did exactly what he was supposed to,” Flanigan told me. “He followed the statutes. He accurately stated the conclusions.” He said it was “odd” that Mueller had failed to reach a conclusion on the obstruction-of-justice question. “It’s just not like Bob not to reach a conclusion,” Flanigan said. “He’s generally not quick in reaching decisions, but he’s decisive. To leave that hanging there as sort of a loose thread did surprise me.”

Barr’s critics, meanwhile, believe he was too quick to clear Trump of obstruction in his initial four-page letter to Congress, released in March. And they were even more incensed by his commentary at the press conference he held before releasing the report itself. The attorney general described the White House as having “fully cooperated” with Mueller, even though the report went into considerable detail about the president’s refusal to sit for an in-person interview or to answer written questions pertaining to obstruction of justice. And while Mueller pointedly did not exonerate Trump on the question of obstruction, Barr not only cleared the president, but also appeared to justify his actions by describing Trump as “frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”

That explanation “was a little odd,” said Robert Anderson, a former longtime FBI leader who served as the bureau’s counterintelligence chief under Mueller. “That’s not really neutral, just looking at the law. Of all the attorneys general that I served under, that’s not part of the conversation.” (Mueller declined to comment through his spokesman, Peter Carr, and the Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment on the criticism leveled against Barr.)

McNulty faulted Barr’s critics for quibbling with the way he described the report, saying the attorney general would have been well aware that what he said about Mueller’s findings would quickly be checked against the text of the report. “Knowing him and knowing what motivates him, some of the characterizations of him have just been inappropriate and inaccurate,” he told me. “If you know anything about Bill Barr, you know that he would care about the accuracy of his words in relation to the truth. So I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

Congressional Democrats don’t have any plans to afford him that benefit: When they have the chance to question him again this week, the discrepancies between his summaries and the text of Mueller’s report are likely to be their juiciest target.

As with so much else over the course of a nearly two-year investigation, looming over the debate about the Mueller report is the oh-so-closely-held opinion of its author. Does Mueller believe that his friend Barr mischaracterized the painstaking, book-length document he submitted? And did he expect Barr to clear the president once and for all, or, as Democrats want to believe, did he intend for Congress to use his findings as a road map for further investigation and possibly impeachment?

Mueller has been studiously silent for two years, saving his conclusions—or lack thereof—for the 448 written pages he handed in last month. He didn’t hold a single press conference and was absent for Barr’s event last week. He even politely declined to comment when NBC News followed him to his car as he left church on Easter Sunday.

Read: The Democrats’ plan to summon Robert Mueller

Democrats want answers from him and are insisting that he testify before the House Judiciary Committee in the next month. Barr has said he won’t stand in his way, but there’s been no final determination about when—or if—he’ll appear. “We have not heard about a date yet or received confirmation that Mueller will come in to testify,” said Daniel Schwarz, a spokesman for Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler. The Department of Justice, which is handling the request for Mueller’s testimony, did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

As for what Mueller might say, there is broad disagreement. None of the former colleagues I spoke to expect him to divulge information that was redacted in the report, and Flanigan predicted he would open up little daylight between himself and Barr. “I’ll be surprised if Bob is ever quoted as saying he disagrees with the way Bill handled this,” he told me.

Figliuzzi and Anderson, however, described Mueller as deferential to Congress’s oversight role, and they suggested he would find a way to share his views honestly. Figliuzzi recalled that in the rare instances when Mueller was overruled by leaders at the Department of Justice, he would write a confidential memo memorializing his views and send it up the chain. “He wasn’t the one who would yell, scream, bang on the desk, and say, ‘This is all wrong,’” Figliuzzi said. “Those rare examples were very illustrative of him playing within the parameters he was given, but yet asserting his principles and ethics when necessary.

“I think we’ll see that approach in testimony on the Hill,” Figliuzzi continued. “He won’t necessarily come out and champion a cause without having been asked a question, but when he’s asked the right question, you’ll see him say, ‘Yeah, I don’t understand, nor do I agree with, the attorney general’s characterization of the president cooperating.’”

It’ll be on Democrats to see whether they can prod Mueller into opining about Barr, his longtime friend who is once again, at least temporarily, his boss.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Russell Berman is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics.Twitter Email

Global 5G Wireless Networks Threaten Weather ForecastsA satellite image of atmospheric water vapor over the U.S. Bright blue and white areas have high water vapor, while dark orange and brown mark drier air. Credit: NOAAAdvertisement

The U.S. government has begun auctioning off blocks of wireless radio frequencies to be used for the next-generation communications network known as 5G. But some of these frequencies lie close to those that satellites use for crucial Earth observations—and meteorologists are worried that 5G transmissions could interfere with their data collection.

Unless regulators or telecommunications companies take steps to reduce the risk of interference, Earth-observing satellites flying over areas of the United States with 5G wireless coverage won’t be able to detect concentrations of water vapour in the atmosphere accurately. Meteorologists in the United States and other countries rely on those data to feed into their models; without that information, weather forecasts worldwide are likely to suffer.

“This is a global problem,” says Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.Advertisement

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA are currently locked in a high-stakes negotiation with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees U.S. wireless networks. NOAA and NASA have asked the FCC to work with them to protect frequencies used for Earth observations from interference as 5G rolls out. But the FCC auctioned off the first chunk of the 5G spectrum with minimal protection. The sale ended on 17 April and reaped nearly U.S.$2 billion.Sharing the sky

Because the United States is such a large communications market, the decisions the government makes about how to deploy 5G are likely to influence global discussions on how to regulate the technology. Regulators from around the world will gather starting on 28 October in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to hammer out international agreements for which frequencies companies will be able to use for 5G transmissions, and what level of interference with Earth-observation frequencies is acceptable.

Astronomers, meteorologists and other scientists have long worked to share the spectrum with other users, sometimes shifting to different frequencies to prevent conflicts. But “this is the first time we’ve seen a threat to what I’d call the crown jewels of our frequencies—the ones that we absolutely must defend come what may”, says Stephen English, a meteorologist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK.

They include the 23.8-gigahertz frequency, at which water vapour in the atmosphere emits a faint signal. Satellites, such as the European MetOp probes, monitor energy radiating from Earth at this frequency to assess humidity in the atmosphere below—measurements that can be taken during the day or at night, even if clouds are present. Forecasters feed these data into models to predict how storms and other weather systems will develop in the coming hours and days.

But a 5G station transmitting at nearly the same frequency will produce a signal that looks much like that of water vapour. “We wouldn’t know that that signal is not completely natural,” says Gerth. Forecasts would become less accurate if meteorologists incorporated those bad data into their models.AdvertisementNoisy neighbours

The recent FCC auction involved 2 groups of frequencies: one between 24.25 and 24.45 gigahertz and the other between 24.75 and 25.25 gigahertz. Wireless equipment transmitting near the lower end of that range could interfere with the 23.8-gigahertz water-vapour measurement. The FCC did not respond to Nature's request for comment on the matter.

The situation is akin to having a noisy neighbour next door, Gerth says. If that person blasts music, a lot of the noise will probably bleed through the wall into your apartment. But if you can persuade the person to turn their music down, you’ll be able to sleep more peacefully.

Radio-frequency engineers measure noise in units of decibel watts. Regulators set controls that limit the noise allowed; more-negative numbers indicate increasingly stringent controls. The FCC auction set a noise limit on the US 5G network of –20 decibel watts, which is much noisier than the thresholds under consideration by almost every other nation for their systems. The European Commission, for instance, has settled on –42 decibel watts for 5G base stations, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is recommending –55 decibel watts.newsletter promo

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Many hope that the WMO numbers will influence regulators to adopt strict global noise standards at the meeting in Egypt. Because of how the scale is devised, the U.S. proposal would allow over 150 times more noise than the European proposal—and more than 3,000 times more than the WMO plan, says Eric Allaix, a meteorologist at Météo-France in Toulouse who heads a WMO steering group on radio-frequency coordination.Future fears

There’s relatively little research on exactly how bad weather forecasts could get as interference increases at 23.8 gigahertz and other frequencies crucial for Earth observations, says Gerth. “But the more we lose, the greater the impact will be,” he says.Advertisement

NOAA and NASA have reportedly finished a study on the effects of differing levels of noise interference, but it has not been made public, despite at least one formal request from Congress. A 2010 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded that losing scientific access to the 23.8-gigahertz signal would eliminate 30% of all useful data in microwave frequencies, which contribute significantly to global weather forecasts.

And not having atmospheric data from the United States can dramatically hurt forecasts for Europe, whose weather patterns are often steered by conditions over the United States 3–4 days earlier, says English.

The Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, said that it "strongly supports the administration's policy to promote U.S. leadership in secure 5G networks, while at the same time sustaining and improving critical government and scientific missions." NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine declined to comment, but spoke at length about his concerns over 5G at an agency meeting earlier this month. "This is a big deal," Bridenstine said.

The FCC plans to begin its next 5G auction, which will be the country’s largest ever, in December. It will involve three more frequency bands—some of which are used for satellite observations of precipitation, sea ice and clouds.

This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on April 26, 2019.AdvertisementABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)Alexandra Witze

Alexandra Witze works for Nature magazine.Recent Articles

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